I've been looking for some kind of Posting Guidelines for this forum and I found this post on The Forge. Chris Lehrich neatly encapsulated exactly what I want for this forum -- so below is an edited quote from his post on The Forge at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=13096.0.

Lately I have noticed a lot of what might be called â€œuncharitable reading.â€ By this I mean that I see responses that essentially say, â€œI donâ€™t get what youâ€™re saying, and youâ€™re wrong.â€ Or, â€œI donâ€™t get what youâ€™re saying, this is a stupid topic.â€ Or, â€œI donâ€™t get what youâ€™re saying, you have to prove to me that itâ€™s worth discussing.â€ Only the last is even plausible, logically, but on a forum like ours it seems to me that if you donâ€™t find a topic interesting then don't post to it; leave the discussion to those who do find it interesting.

I have some suggestions and I think everyone should consider his or her own posting habits in light of these suggestions.

Slow DownThreads have a habit of appearing, receiving a page or more of responses before the bewildered initiator even gets around to comment, and then dissipating. Furthermore, the amount of time allowed to give someone a chance is very brief, as in hours. If all those responses were interesting and valuable, it should take more than a few hours to process that much stuff. Whatâ€™s being encouraged here, just by the structure of discussion, are snap judgments, shallow thinking, and a refusal to change oneâ€™s mind.

Read Carefully and ThoroughlyMany arguments and misunderstandings are based on fast reading of a post, not examining every word and phrase. Someone says, â€œUsually, X happens,â€ and respondents reply, â€œNo, X doesnâ€™t always happen, youâ€™re wrong.â€ This is just sloppy reading, and it happens I think because people are reading too fast and trying to post rapidly. If itâ€™s not sloppiness, itâ€™s intellectual dishonesty, so Iâ€™m going to be charitable and assume sloppiness.

Try To UnderstandThis is the biggest problem and solving it takes time and effort. If you read a post and think you understand the point being made, but you think that point is totally ludicrous, you should assume that youâ€™ve misunderstood. Donâ€™t assume the other guy is an idiot; try to see it from his point of view. Ask yourself, â€œHow could he think that? Whatâ€™s he got in mind?â€ So far as I know, nobody here is a complete fool; one has something in mind when one makes an argument, and it is the readerâ€™s job to try and figure it out. Push the argument around in your mind, using all the examples and analogies and whatnot proposed, until youâ€™re very sure you understand what the poster has in mind. You should also be able to defend the argument: you should be able to see why the poster believes it. Only then are you really qualified to challenge it.

Deal Directly With IncomprehensionIf you simply cannot understand what is being said, ask yourself whether you are being over-hasty. Have you considered it from all sides? Is it possible that the poster has made a typing error â€“ excessively common around here, of course â€“ that is making it tricky to understand? If the best you can do is guess that the poster wrote X but must have meant Y, you must begin any response by noting that this is how you interpret the post.

Assume Terminological SlippageEspecially with relative newcomers to the forum, if something seems a little off-base, consider the possibility that the poster doesnâ€™t quite understand certain local jargon terms. Before you go any farther, try to figure out (a) what the poster thinks the term means, and (b) what, on that basis, his argument is. 90% of the time, the argument doesnâ€™t really require the term as such. The correct response to this, if you have something to say about the argument, is in two parts: (1) a very brief correction of the terminology, followed by a restatement of the original argument made by the poster, now using the term correctly (or not at all); and (2) a response to the argument itself. Once one respondent has done #1, it should not be repeated. What happens all too frequently is an exhaustive correction of the term and no response to the actual argument. Part of what some people call the â€œelitismâ€ of the forum is this behavior, which is entirely the respondentâ€™s fault. Thatâ€™s right: every time you do this, you validate the criticism that this forum is a bunch of elitist, pseudo-intellectual snobs. If the poster is an old-timer, you can be tougher about terms, but still you need to consider whether they really matter to the argument as such.

Deal With ExamplesIf someone proposes a concrete example, from actual play or a plausible hypothetical, you must respond to it directly. Proposing a new example instead is just ground-shifting. If you donâ€™t understand why the example is supposed to demonstrate the point, then read it again, and donâ€™t respond until you understand what the poster has in mind.

Donâ€™t Get Het-Up About ExamplesIllustrative examples are presumably intended to be illustrative; if they donâ€™t work for you but you understand the argument anyway, then set aside the example and deal with the argument. Instead, we constantly get this exchange â€“

Initiator: â€œMy argument is X. For example, Y.â€ Response: â€œNope, Y shows Z, blah blah blah about Z.â€Initiator: â€œI want to talk about X.â€Response: â€œNo, we have to talk about Y and exclusively Y and that means Z so keep quiet about X.â€

The correct response would have been: â€œI think Y shows Z, not X. So letâ€™s talk about X on a different basis.â€ And possibly, â€œDoes my new example, Y-prime, work for you? Hereâ€™s why I think it does.â€

Analogies Are Not ArgumentsThis is the extreme case of the above two points about examples.

Initiator: â€œI want to talk about X. Itâ€™s kind of like Y.â€Response: â€œY is a dumb analogy, because blah blah blah.â€ Or: â€œY is a dumb analogy. Itâ€™s like Z instead.â€

Start by asking yourself whether you get what is meant by the analogy. If you do, and you think it a silly analogy, then forget the analogy and deal with the argument. If you donâ€™t get it, then try to figure it out. Only respond to the analogy if you understand it and agree that it is a useful analogy. Otherwise we just end up with one of those long-winded arguments about cars and gear-shifts and other nonsense.

Recap: Figure It OutTo restate the #1 point here. Lots of people are reading posts and saying, â€œNo, I think thatâ€™s stupid,â€ without first asking, â€œDo I see what heâ€™s saying?â€ Then you get into a back-and-forth about you-said no-I-said no-you-said no-I-didnâ€™t. Any value in the original post is long since out the window.

Of course it is the posterâ€™s task to try to express him- or herself clearly. But it is the readerâ€™s task to try to get the point. If posters are not being clear, respondents should try to assist them to be so; they may be unclear because they are not quite certain of their ground and would like help from others.

When a reader does not get the point and attacks, the reader is simply being uncharitable. If you simply do not understand someoneâ€™s point, consider shutting up and waiting until someone else figures it out. If a couple of days pass and nobody responds, maybe itâ€™s time to ask for clarification.

- Chris Lehrich

I just want to reiterate a couple of points:

There is no prize for being the first to respond to someone's post. So relax, take your time, and bring your valued input to the discussion.

Read the whole post and think about the post before responding. Too often on other forums I see responses to long posts where it is clear the respondent hasn't even read the whole post before starting to respond. All too often these posts are a statement of what the respondent wants to say couched as a response rather than an actual response to what has been written. Such posts might as well be email -- there is no value in the response to any other reader of the forum.

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